


To Say Nothing of the Cat

by Zoya1416



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen, Rescuing an Extinct Species, Unexpected Turns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7022665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penwiper and Ned return from a less-than-usual walk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Say Nothing of the Cat

Verity opened the front door to find Ned trying to keep a yowling Penwiper bundled inside his coat. He hurried in, and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Verity, Penwiper is sick. She started getting sick while I was out walking her.”

As the reigning mistress of all the newly rescued cats, Penwiper usually showed dignified manners. She had been trained to a leash and harness after only a month of clawing and biting. Ned and Verity were allowed to keep her for one week every two months, but they could visit the Royal Feline Laboratory any time, and were encouraged to. When they weren't there the technicians played with the kittens constantly, to avoid the newly rediscovered issue of feral cat syndrome. They walked Penwiper twice a day to let her look at the outside world. She was usually the best of cats: haughty, disdainful, lovely to look at, and a purr that made life's problems go away. She did not yowl.

“What happened?”

Ned peeled Penwiper from his chest, where she'd taken up the “I hate you and you're going to die for this” claw hold and gently placed her on the floor. The cat immediately bolted under a chair and curled onto her back. She started writhing against a chair leg and emitting strange “Rowr er Ro WERE ar ER rowwwr sounds.”

“You didn't give her any catnip, did you? Or let her get into something?” Verity questioned suspiciously. 

They had tried catnip once, to see whether it could be used as a training treat. The subsequent hours were as amusing as they were alarming. Penwiper acted as if she were high, as if she'd had some of the synthacan which had been plaguing Oxford undergraduates for years. She hadn't, but her symptoms alarmed Ned and Verity enough to rush her to the lab. They had had to sit through another cat safety training visual. 

“Of course not. She didn't eat anything on the ground.” Ned was incensed. 

It had been difficult to prevent the black and white kitten from exploring under bushes.

Oxford might be one of the most prestigious universities in the world, but that didn't stop students from finding things which could alter their minds. Per the most recent laws synthetic marijuana, heroin and cocaine were legal, but meth, pcp, and big slam were not. Some bright young things had found that if they took quick metabolic erasers and dropped their paraphernalia even seconds before a copper could reach them, they could pass any sobriety test. As a result, the angry gardeners had to remove crushed vials and drug debris from the shrubberies fairly often.

“Of course I didn't let her get into anything, Verity! It's one of the walks the feline specialists recommend for maximum changes of views. Penwiper was pulling at the leash and growling at me, but I thought it was because I was an hour later today. I'm at a critical point in the thesis. But I'm not—I wouldn't let her get into anything.” 

He looked defiantly at Verity. She had finished her thesis quickly and was slated to become a teaching assistant in the OTT college in the next Hilary term. His was taking longer.

They looked back at the cat, who had leaped onto the chair's seat cushion and was now—rubbing her belly back and forth, crouching down and lifting her tail in the air—he choked.

“I thought they said she had to be 6 months old for this! That's what the laboratory wrote in all the paperwork they sent. How long was it before they found Princess Arjumand?”

“We were told three weeks. But since there have been no cats for so long—how much do they know about kittens anyway?” Verity's face was very pale. There were fewer than fifty cats in the world, ever since Verity was the one to bring forward the first, Tocelyn Mering's Princess Arjumand. 

They were counting feverishly now, looking aghast at the frankly erotic movements of the disturbed young black and white kitten.

“If she was a month then—and it's been four months since the dedication—” Verity held a hand over her mouth—“she could be—”

“Probably is.” Ned tapped behind his left mastoid bone to summon emergency services.

“It's not a emergency!” hissed Verity, who was trying to coax Penwiper away from the cushion she was attempting to mate. “It's a natural thing.”

“Used to be a natural thing. They sent me a letter, oh, in the last couple of days telling me they would schedule a time for her estrus sometime in—the next week.”

“This letter, here?” Verity had quickly browsed Ned's piles, looking for the typical royal purple border of the Feline Research Lab. She held it out and glared at him.

“It was a month ago. You let her—did you run into any other cats today?”

“Well, just the one—Maximus—that belongs to Badri and T.J. That's when both of them started acting strangely—T.J. had to scruff Maximus and then I stuffed Penwiper in my jacket—it's not like anyone's ever seen a cat in, in—for almost 50 years.” Ned broke off because the wailing sirens had now subsided in front of their door

“What's this all about?” The first stout and uniformed medical technician rushed into the house.

“She—” Ned was too embarrassed to explain and pointed.

Verity had somehow coaxed Penwiper into her carrier and calmly brought her to the door.

“Sir, this cat is the first breeding Queen born from the first resurrected cat in the world. She has suddenly become ill. She is literally priceless and needs to be returned to the Royal Feline Laboratory at Oxford as safely as possible. Thank you for participating in her care.”

With glares, but without argument, the emergency crew returned to the ambulance. Verity and an officer were allowed to sit with the carrier, which was carefully cinched into the space reserved for wheelchairs. There was no problem with the small size of the carrier and Verity was surprised.

“Infants, miss. We're prepared for any size. Didn't expect one of these, though.”

Ned had to remain up front.

“What's really the matter with her?” asked the first technician “'Cos I can hear her, and it's like when my bitch goes into heat—is that what it is? And you called the rescue teams for this?”

Ned had recovered some of his poise. “First breeding cat in the world. She's literally called a Queen. You will all have your pictures taken for the papers, as soon as she is safely in the lab.”

“Pictures, eh? For carting a dammed moggy—”

“A Queen moggy.” He promised the man several accolades he had no control over at the moment, but that's what clerks were for.

The medical technician laughed. “Wait tell I tell the missus. Say, could you name a kitten after her? She'd love that.”

“That's ultimately up to the Lab. But let me have her name.”  
“Prudie. Prudence, that is but no one ever calls her that.”

“Prudence sounds very well,” sad Ned solemnly. Behind him he heard the yowls of an angry cat and sent up an atheist's prayer that Verity would never find out how close they'd come. The massive black Maximus had actually pounced on Penwiper, and the two men had endured dozens of clawmarks to get them separated. Had the tom actually been able to?—and wouldn't _that_ interfere with the Feline lab's grand schemes? 

Did it matter really? A few minutes of mastoid-accessed reference works had helped educate him. Cats could mate with five different males, each estrus, he'd quickly learned. They didn't even ovulate until after they'd been mated. He didn't know what the lab had intended, but only if all the kittens were solid black would he tell Verity.

Resurrection of an extinct species was very noble, but when it happened to be a rutting kitten—He quickly converted a laugh into a cough.


End file.
